Your voice is just as important as your words

Your voice is a finely tuned piece of equipment.


Your voice can give insight into your deepest thoughts,

It's a breathy whisper,
A high pitched yell,
It's a deep, soothing story

When speaking we spend so much time thinking of the words, we underestimate the tools we have to share them:

🎤 Volume - that’s an easy one, it’s speaking loud or quiet. We can yell our joy and rage, but we can invite the audience to sit forward and listen with a whisper.

💥 Register or pitch- this is the range in tone our voice box can produce, from a squeaky falsetto to a deep baritone. Play with your voice, use the whole range.

🍫 Timbre - the unique “something” that gives color and personality to your voice, it's how we recognize individual voices. It's the richness that comes from complex overtones of the sound waves.

🎶 Prosody- the sing song of your voice. This is the expressive or melodic aspects of oral language and reading- the difference between a drone and an engaging listen. Think of your punctuation as a musical stave.

🏃‍♀️ Pace - you can rush or go slow to make different points. And don’t forget the power of silence- a good long pause can be really powerful.

💎 Tone- this is what brings meaning to your words. "Don't talk to me in that tone of voice"... it's hard to explain but we know what mum means! Tone is how do you want the audience to feel about your words.


How your audience will feel is governed as much by the words as it is by HOW you say them.

Practicing your speech or presentation is critical not just to remember the words but to experiment with your delivery.

Use ALL the tools at your disposal- there are so many ways to say the same sentence, but you won't know until you say them outloud!


#publicspeaking #speakercoach #voice #language #tone